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23 September 2008

If You are Thinking of Having a Hip Replacement...

I am here to help. There's not much for me to update on my own progress, as I have returned, through Pilates and yoga, to "normal." (I've never been normal.) But I am here to help everyone else who is having a hip replacement.

If you are thinking of having a replacement, read this blog all the way through. I've tried to be as truthful as I can about the experience, from the day before the operation to the present, nearly two years later. Only by going back to how I felt at the beginning of the process can I remember how much pain I was in when I tried to register myself into the hospital, and when I walked down the corridors for the pre-op tests. In retrospect, I waited too long.

I thought I could cure myself through diet and exercise. I couldn't. But now that I've had the surgery, I see there are some times when surgery is clearly the best choice.

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Hi Francine! My name is Tami, I am from Northern Michigan. I am scheduled to have Total Hip Replacement of the left hip. I was born with Hip Dysplasia. I use to weigh 300lbs but had gastric bypass surgery because at the time, the ortho. surgeon that I was seeing told me that my hip pain would go away if I lost weight. So I had Gastric Bypass surgery to assist me in losing weight. I lost 143lbs. The only problem is, the weight loss did not make the pain go away. I was finally diagnosed this last year with Hip Dysplasia. We have tried physical therapy twice and horrible shots but none have helped me. My current surgeon looked at all my xrays and there has been a great deal of eroding of the hip bone so she has decided that I am going to have to have a hip replacement to help with the arthritis, hip dysplasia and correct my walking. I wanted to let you know that I was very impressed with your blog and I have read it from day one all the way to your current posting in Sept. 2008. BTW, my surgeon wanted to schedule me for the Friday after Thanksgiving and after reading your "not" good care during the holidays, I told her I wanted it scheduled after so it will be on Dec. 3rd providing I clear medical clearance. I just wanted to say THANK YOU for posting a wonderful blog!!!!

Hi Francine and Tami! My name is Karen, I am 47 years old and I had Left THA January 30 2008. It was the best thing I could have ever done! I have the best ortho surgeon in the world. My prothesis is all metal. I exercise doing water aerobics and want to start doing some pilates and spinning classes. I read one of the comments on here where someone said that can do anything and forget sometimes that they had this procedure done. I have to agree. I don't have any clicking or clunking noises that others have spoken about, but I am still getting used to my limits. My mother and aunt have two THA, and were 47 when they had their first ones done. Am I wrong in thinking that taking care by good diet (keep weight down) and correct consistent exercise might prolong the fact that I may have to have my other hip done? Currently, my other hip is very good. Shows not sign of anything but good healthy bone. So I am really trying to keep it that way. However, my hip joint was not completely bone to bone, the head of my femur had collapsed and had to be repaired along with the THA . . . took my doctor 45 minutes to do the entire surgery. I am in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and the Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center is where I had my surgery. They are truely the best! My entire experience from the very beginning to the end has been a very good experience. I know this is not the case in every are or every doctor, so I consider myself extremely lucky to be surrounded by such a great ortho surgeon/group, hospital, PT, and fitness center. The Women's Hospital here in BR is strictly a women's health facility-babys, surgeries, etc. They also have a Fitness Center for only women . . . for ALL women. No matter your age, ability, size, there is something for you. The facility is beautiful, clean and employees are wonderful. No matter, every women that comes in can feel at ease doing whatever it is they need to do to get healthy and can feel comfortable doing it. I am soooo lucky and blessed!! If your doctor has told you that you may need to have THA, do it, do it, do it!!! You will have your life back. Don't wait . . . my doctor told me that I was at a good point to have the surgery because he had bone to work with. If you wait, there will be complications in some form or another because of the bone loss. Do it!! it's a piece of cake!!!

Francine, have been working my way through your blog and have found it more helpful than people who tell me stories of their own or friends hip replacements. Especially when they tell you that they were back to normal and doing all sorts of unbelievable things within weeks of the op. I had my hip replacement fourteen weeks ago on the National Health Service in Glasgow, Scotland. It has been a great success, if only because of the strict regime set down by my consultant who expected me to stay on arm crutches for three months before then starting any physiotherapy exercises. These started last week and I am on one crutch now and walking between one and two miles per day. I am now expecting to go back to work next week and feel ready to get to the next stage. Whatever that is !

One anxiety I have is my current dependence on a crutch. Will this diminish soon, in your experience ?

Hi Francine- I am here to say that you absolutely can practice yoga after a hip replacement- in fact i've had both hips replaced and enjoy a very avid yoga practice and own my own yoga studio in Colts Neck, NJ!! I had my right hip replaced 10 years ago and started doing yoga a little over a year later- bikram yoga which is pretty intense and found that i got full flexibilility back in my hip. i started practicing vinyasa yoga as well. i am a dancer, so maybe that's why i've had such good luck after my hip surgery. i just had my left hip replaced and after 3 months started doing my yoga practice slowly and feel great!! I go slowly and encourage my students to do the smae. my focus is on form, not flexibility and I think yoga helped me to heal much faster!! I may push my hip at times too much, but when I start to feel pain i hold back. I love ,my new hips and my yoga as well! Ann Yocum www.coltsneckhotyoga.com

Hi Francine, my name is Amy and i have a question about doing Yoga before a double hip relacement. My partner is 46 and after a very active life is now waiting for both hips to be replaced after being told he has hips of a 70 year old. He has recently started private Yoga sessions, at the begining he noticed a Huge difference and was happy with the results but the past two weeks he has been in constant pain, and the pain is coming from his hips, the right hip in particular. When looking at the x-ray pic's of his hips it is bone on bone. The young Yoga teacher is confident she can help him progress to a point of not having the replacements at all but i dont agree. I personally think he is doing too much, although his muscles have more flexability in them from the Yoga sessions his hips are more painfull than normal and hurting constantly. I understand that after replacements Yoga is a great form of excercise but my question for you is after the information i have given do you think my partner should carry on through the pain or give it up till after the replacements? He is on the waiting list for the first one to be done but as of yet we dont know how long that will be.I know every case is different but someones elses opinion would be greatly appriciated. Thanks

I am so.o.o.o.o not a doctor, but I was a certified yoga instructor and I would never have told anyone I could make it possible to avoid a hip replacement. Bone on bone can be very painful.

However, yoga doesn't make it worse, and he shouldn't stop doing it either. What yoga can do is strengthen everything around the hip and also stretch things that may have caused the bone on bone situation in the first place. It made my own recovery faster.

I think what's happening to him would be happening with or without yoga; his hips are deteriorating. Stuff happens:-)

No one gets a hip replacement one minute before they have to; it's not the sort of thing that sounds good as an elective procedure.

Yes you did explain it very well about your experience. I agreed that there are some situations when you can control pain with diet and exercise butstill have chance to be in circumstance when the only choice is Private Hip Replacement Surgery